I recently came across the MP3's from this gig back in 2010 hidden away in a dusty corner of my hard drive. From what I remember one of the guys from Cura Cochino sent it to me, he'd asked if we'd be happy for them to release it as a live cd on Buried in Hell Records. We thanked him for the recording but politely declined the offer as we didn't really think the quality/playing warranted a physical release. however, going back to listen to it now although I still stand by the decision not to release it I definitely think it's worthy of sharing. The sound is a little up and down and broken up for the first minute or so while they're obviously getting levels but thereafter it's a pretty solid recording. A bit guitar and vocal heavy in the mix but has a nice raw energetic feel and is a cool document of the night / tour. At that point we were still just primarily playing old shit, Blunt Instrument being the only new tune in the set, also this one of the very few gigs where we played Void so it's cool to have a recording of that song.
It was one of those strange mid-tour gigs where you're in and out of a place so fast and you don't even see the city or anything. It was about half way through our 2010 West Coast US/Mexico/Canada tour, we'd just spent a few fun days in the Bay Area, we'd been staying/partying at our good buddy Rooster's old pad in Oakland and had played a couple of great gigs in Berkeley and San Francisco.
We didn't leave the Bay Area until quite late so got to the gig space on the outskirts of Sacramento pretty much as it was all about to kick off. It was way out of town in some kind of storage unit/garage/ lockup(?) at the far end of some industrial estate. I don't recall getting to see Sacramental proper at all.
Now I think I should explain that upon getting to a venue the very first thing I generally do is check out the toilet situation. Even after all these decades I still get a level of nerves before I play, it appears no one else in the band does, it doesn't bother me though, I'm happy with that as to me it means I still really care (not that they don't of course) but anyway this means my nervous body says, "what? you gotta play? Right....you gotta shit!!", thus, while everyone is generally on stage setting up ready to play it'll be "where's Mid? oh right....toilet, pre-gig dump". It's s serious business. So...get to a venue, check out where the toilet is, what state is it in? As anyone who has played the Euro squat circuit will know you're very much playing Russian Roulette on that front. Anyway so it's 1 - Where's the toilet? 2 - Is there a door? 3 - Is there a lock on the door? 4 - Is there a seat? 5 - Is there any bog roll? etc, obviously if you hit a yes on all of those you're in toilet heaven, it's very rare though. I could write an entire post on toile horror stories of the world (as could any touring band). In this case it was very simple though.
There was no toilet. Nothing!! you couldn't even nip outside to slash in the empty parking lot either as their was a cop car sat opposite all night obviously on piss patrol. It must have been a quiet night in the neighbourhood..
So that meant before I could even think about playing I had to go on a toilet hunt. There weren't even any open stores or bars in the area and it was a good mile or so before me and Alicia found an out of the way Del Taco or Taco bell where I could utilise their facilities. We did get a burrito for the walk back of course.
The gig itself was pretty fun, there was only a small turnout, I don't know if it was because it was a Monday and out of town or whatever, it didn't really matter though. I'll always put as much in if it's 5 people or 500, I'm just chuffed to play. All the bands were great, everyone was super friendly and the few that were there were having a blast and everyone rocked hard. Plus they made a killer chilli.
D.I with some of the Sacto crew.
Anyway, as soon as the gig was done we hotfooted it out of town, I'm not sure if it was because we had nowhere to stay or just that Joe (our trusty driver for the tour) was keen to press on up north to his hometown of Portland but we just jumped back in the van and between him and Greg they pulled an all night drive up to Portland while we kipped in the van. Thus, we never did get to see Sacramento at all (hence no photos). maybe we'll come back some time, that'd be cool.
Other news and general wiffling and waffling.
Firstly I'd like to thank everyone who checked out my Hitching Tales post a few weeks back. It got shared about quite a bit and has currently had over 550 reads which is super cool, I guess it was something a lot of other older folk could identify with and it was awesome to see others sharing their own hitching tales on Facebook. I do have plans for some other quite extensive posts about various memories/topics from the 80's, I just need to find the time. I guess there's no hurry though (well apart from my ever crumbling memory box).
Art life, I've been spectacularly unproductive of late. if you've read any of my previous posts about my problems with creative block, procrastination etc, well, writing about them hasn't helped at all as I've just been repeating all those various old bad habits. I'm still struggling over finding any focus and deciding which of the million ideas I should prioritise and work on. However there are a couple of exciting irons in the fire. Firstly, good friend and band mate, Katri (KatriK Design) has booked the space at Studio 20 here in downtown Norwich for a 3 day group exhibition/event in November which she's kindly asked me to be part of. I'll add more details about this once we get things all sorted but a bunch of us will be exhibiting and (hopefully) selling work and having a general grand ol' time. I'm super psyched about this, it gives me something to aim for and hopefully I can soon focus on getting a new series of work together. As I write this it is just over 6 months away but I don't want to get too comfortable with that thinking I have ages as I know how quickly that will fly by, I'm determined not to get to October and realise I suddenly have to rush to make work at the last minute. It's 22 years since I graduated at Art school and it's still a fairly regular anxiety dream where I dream it's literally the night before the private view and I suddenly discover I literally have no work at all and haven't even started yet!!!! From what I remember we had most of the last of the three years just to work on stuff for our show (alongside writing the infernal dissertation). Even being able to work on art all day every day (well apart from the evening job I had at Bertram Books) it was still a last minute stress so 6 months of only having evenings and weekends I'll need to be both organised and disciplined, neither of which are my strengths. It'll be good though and it's welcome pressure. I also have another exciting offer of a collaboration in the works, likewise more about that when I've something concrete on the go. Plenty to get my teeth into at the moment so I need to get with it and seize the day as they say.
It's all coming at a perfect time really, the latest lockdown is finally easing and fingers (and everything) crossed there's some light at the end of this long bullshit tunnel. I have recently been struggling with a little period of depression but feel like I'm through that black cloud for now, it's Spring (my favourite time of the year), started to see friends again, got some band practices booked for next month, plus a gig for later in the year so just hoping everything continues to settle down.
while I was struggling with my mood and general mental well being a while back I found welcome solace in losing myself in this. I always turn to this wonderful film, Sigur Ros is the best therapy, making myself a cuppa and relaxing on the sofa and getting lost in these sights and sounds never fails to soothe the soul.
That'll do for for today, may I just add that this post was written hopped up on goofballs. Drinking a large cup of coffee immediately followed by a can of Tenzing Blackberry and acai energy drink wasn't a smart move.
I need to go for a run........................
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